Phil's Lists, Part 14: Poems

Of the millions of poems in print, I have read only a few thousand. Here are some that have moved me, which means they still move me after a hundred reads. Some I could not find online and some of the links may be broken, but I still urge you to read them. The list will grow as time permits.

1. Acquainted with the Night by Robert Frost
2. After the Dinner Party by Robert Penn Warren
3. Archaic Torso of Apollo by Rainer Maria Rilke
4. Ask Me by William Stafford
5. Because I could not stop for Death by Emily Dickinson
6. Death, Be Not Proud by John Donne
7. Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night by Dylan Thomas
8. Fable of the Water Merchants by Stephen Dunn
9. Forgetfulness by Billy Collins
10. Funeral Blues by W. H. Auden
11. Harlem by Langston Hughes
12. The House on the Hill by Edward Arlington Robinson
13. Howl by Allen Ginsberg
14. I Am a Little Church by e. e. cummings
15. I Am Waiting by Lawrence Ferlinghetti
16. I Knew a Woman by Theodore Roethke
17. I'll tell you how the sun rose by Emily Dickinson
18. If I Could Tell You by W. H. Auden
19. In a Dark Time by Theodore Roethke
20. Ithaka by C. P. Cavafy
21. Last Gods by Galway Kinnell
22. Little Girl Wakes Early by Robert Penn Warren
23. Losses by Grace Schulman
24. Love's Philosophy by Percy Bysshe Shelley
25. The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock by T. S. Eliot
26. Mad Girl's Love Song by Sylvia Plath
27. Mortal Limit by Robert Penn Warren
28. My Papa's Waltz by Theodore Roethke
29. No Man Is an Island by John Donne
30. O Captain! My Captain! by Walt Whitman
31. Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood by William Wordsworth
32. Ode to Ironing by Pablo Neruda
33. Ode to a Lemon by Pablo Neruda
34. One Art by Elizabeth Bishop
35. Preludes by T. S. Eliot
36. She Walks in Beauty by Lord Byron
37. Sisters of Mercy by Leonard Cohen
38. somewhere i have never travelled by e. e. cummings
39. Sonnet 18 by William Shakespeare
40. Sonnet 130 by William Shakespeare
41. Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening by Robert Frost
42. The Stranger Song by Leonard Cohen
43. A Supermarket in California by Allen Ginsberg
44. Theme for English B by Langston Hughes
45. This quiet dust by Emily Dickinson
46. Touch Me by Stanley Kunitz 
47. Traveling through the Dark by William Stafford
48. Unable are the Loved to die by Emily Dickinson
49. The Waking by Theodore Roethke
50. When One Has Lived a Long Time Alone by Galway Kinnell 

Phil's Lists, Part 13: Theater Companies

I almost never go to musicals, except for obligatory ones with relatives visiting from overseas, but I go to dozens of straight plays each year. Working playwrights should learn what's out there, and attending productions by these theater companies:    

New York

• Classic Stage Company introduced me to Harold Pinter and Tennessee Williams's lesser known works in the 1970s, so I'm glad to know it's still thriving.
• La MaMa is what brought Sam Shepard and Lanford Wilson to the world.
• Some of our most famous actors flock to Manhattan Theatre Club to act in this company's deep list of contemporary plays.  
• New York Theatre Workshop is hip in a cool East Village location and seeks to be on the cutting edge of drama. 
• Pearl Theatre Company stages several provocative dramatic works each year.
• The Public Theater, also known as Joseph Papp's Public Theater, has been a go-to company for actors like Robert DeNiro, John Malkovich, Al Pacino, and Meryl Streep.
• Primary Stages has produced numerous new plays by prize-winning playwrights. 
• Playwrights Horizons has lived up to its name for decades by being a central source for new American plays. 
• Roundabout Theatre Company is one of the most upscale companies, featuring both classical and modern drama.
• Signature Theatre, my favorite, is dedicated to the playwright and to selling reasonably priced tickets, which even students can afford.

New Jersey

• George Street Playhouse in New Brunswick stages new and revived shows from emerging and established playwrights.
• McCarter Theatre Center in Princeton offers everything from Edward Albee to August Wilson.
• Two River Theater in Red Bank houses a spacious, beautiful venue for recent theatrical works.

Chicago

• Goodman Theatre, which has been the launching ground of many Broadway plays.
• I have attended two productions of the innovative Steppenwolf Theater Company in Chicago.

Los Angeles

• Mark Taper Forum, which is where Hollywood folks try their hand at real performance.

Phil's Lists, Part 12: Movies

Great movies always get me to think about the human condition, and that's what writers write about. Here are some lists of must-see movies: 

• My Top 100 Movies List, an evolving collection of international films that have moved me throughout my life, 59 of them from the United States and 41 from other nations.
• American Film Institute's Top 100 Movies, clearly a more famous, but US-biased list. 
• The IMBD Top 250, which is based on viewer rating.
• Wikipedia has a movie list of lists. 
• This is a critics' list by Rotten Tomatoes.
• Take Kevin Lee's word for what movies matter. He's a brilliant guy.

Phil's Lists, Part 11: Speeches

Studying great speeches helps writers determine the pathos of a presentation, the emotional connection that speakers make with their audiences. Here are some sites to get you started: 

• Nobel Prize website includes the Prize lectures of every winner who gave one. My favorites are the ones from the literature laureates.
• American Rhetoric, a worthwhile first stop for the best in political and legal presentations.
• History Place offers a bit more of an international selection.
• See what Time considers the best ten speeches of all time--wow, does it miss the mark by not including more from international sources.
• The best source, and once again Wiki wins, is this site, which crosses many centuries and nations.